


leave your things behind

by copperiisulfate



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-22
Updated: 2012-07-22
Packaged: 2017-11-10 11:33:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/465811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/copperiisulfate/pseuds/copperiisulfate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>they were never made for kingdoms.</p>
            </blockquote>





	leave your things behind

**Author's Note:**

> written for a lyrics fic fest to the music prompt: _get out of this town_ by carrie underwood

They were never made for kingdoms, the three of them, not made for gilded crowns or varnished woods or silken capes or the weight of the world that came with all of it. Somehow, they had fallen in, gotten tangled up and bound, too tight, and it became an effort to remember, to tell themselves in the quiet corners of the night:  _this is not who you are._  
  
It went on for as long as it did, as long as it really could, because even when she had become queen and they had become the men at her guard, standing tall and steady at her either side, they were still the boys of the crossroads first, perpetually in motion with the winds at their backs, just as she was still the blacksmith's daughter, still the girl with calloused hands and the ore in her bones. You could not bend or shake it out of any one of them.  
  
*  
  
Arthur is a good man and everyone knows this. Lancelot lives by it, would have said it to anyone on any given day. Gwaine lives by it but would never say it at all. Arthur is a good man and once they would have died by it but war does terrible things to people. It hollows them out and makes them forget their mothers and brothers and lovers and dreams.  
  
It gets worse when nightmares of men lost have chased much of Lancelot's optimism away in the darkest hours of the night. He looks up at the stars and does not sleep for days, does not rest until the Queen slips into his quarters, lays a head on his forehead, says his name like a spell.  
  
And worse when Gwaine's left arm isn't quite what it used to be, not anymore, knotted and burned and scarred from the fires of the north. The King had been sympathetic and promised him whatever he asked. the Queen had stayed after, tended to him with her hands. When he'd tried to shake her off, she'd had none of it and held him there firm, put her arms around him and kissed him high on his brow.  _We were friends,_ she had said. _Friends first. Friends before all of this and we will be friends long after._  
  
The thing that becomes slowly apparent is that there is no room for friendship in their lives anymore, not here, not for a long time. There is no room for laughter or love, and maybe that is the bit she cannot live with anymore.  
  
*  
  
Arthur is a good man.  
  
Guinevere doesn't need to say it. Once, she had lived by it. She still believes it but the years have taught her that contrary to her childish ideals, being a good man is not enough to be the king of a land with so much blood on its hands. Good men grow old and weary early on and there comes a point in every story where the King is at his wits' end and the people can't do much else but follow blindly on. She doesn't want to wait around to see that descent. That it is inevitable, she knows, wishes so much that she didn't. She wishes she had more faith or knew how to love him better or believe like he believes all the tales that Merlin spins to get him out of bed in the mornings when nothing else in the world ever can.  
  
She assuages her conscience by telling herself that Merlin always was better at her job than he was at his own and, maybe, this is how it was going to end all along.  
  
*  
  
It happens in the middle of an autumn night. The horses are ready and they steal enough meat and bread to last them until they make it far enough off the King's land to hunt and grow their own.  
  
It's not quite treason, not the way she sees it. It's not betrayal even if they have no intention to return.  
  
Arthur is a good man and, for that, Albion will fall.  
  
They are just going back back back, back in time before it ever began to matter.

 

 


End file.
